 |
Billy Luther | |
|---|---|
| Born | |
| Occupation | Director |
| Years active | 2002–present |
Billy Luther is a Native American independent film writer, producer and director. He has made several documentaries and short films. He belongs to the Navajo, Hopi, and Laguna Pueblo tribes. [1] He is known for his movies Frybread Face and Me (2023) and Miss Navajo (2007), and the 2022 television series Dark Winds. Luther identifies as gay. [2]
He descends from the Navajo, Hopi, and Laguna Pueblo peoples. Luther began studying film work at Columbia College Chicago before moving east where he went to Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. [3]
Billy Luther began directing and making short films as a student at Hampshire College in Amherst Massachusetts. One of these films included Face Value, which was a short documentary on racial profiling. [3]
Miss Navajo was Billy Luther's first documentary film he directed. It was produced and distributed by Independent Lens, a series of the PBS channel. It premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. The film premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and traveled around the world at over 300 festivals. It continues to be taught in schools, colleges, and universities around the world.
Grab was Luther's second major documentary film which premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. The film tells the story about the Laguna ceremonial practice of giving. Grab gives the audience views into the lives of the families who have pledged to gift and help the community. These families toss food, cultural items, and other goodies from the roof of their house to the participants below to "grab". [4] Grab was narrated by actress Parker Posey.
Luther co-directed the Native American episode of MTV World's Rebel Music. The episode was launched online – through Facebook – and became MTV's highest-viewed online content in its history. Rebel Music, the series, was executive produced by acclaimed artist and activist Shepard Fairey, who also created the visual identity. Rebel Music examines the lives of young people using art and music to spark change around the world.
Luther directed and produced a short documentary film about a high school shooting on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota. The film follows three survivors as they reunite 10 years after the tragic event. The 30-minute film premiered at the 2016 Los Angeles Film Festival and was nominated for Best Short Film at the 2016 International Documentary Association (IDA) Awards.
The web series produced by ITVS, PBS, and World of Wonder followed Native fashion designer Bethany Yellowtail on her journey to create a line inspired by women on the front lines of political activism. The second season, also known as alter-Native: Kitchen followed three Native and Hawaiian chefs who return to their traditional foods from their communities to modernize them for the next generation.
Frybread Face and Me , Luther's narrative feature debut, premiered at the 2023 SXSW film festival. [5]
Frybread is a dish of the indigenous people of North America that is a flat dough bread, fried or deep-fried in oil, shortening, or lard.
Ondi Doane Timoner is an American filmmaker and the founder and chief executive officer of Interloper Films, a production company located in Pasadena, California.
Greg Barker is an American filmmaker and producer. In 2011, The New York Times described Barker as “a filmmaker of artistic and political consequence.”
Miss Navajo Nation is a pageant that has been held annually on the Navajo Nation, United States, since 1952.
Miss Navajo is a 2007 independent documentary film directed by Billy Luther. It follows 21-year-old Crystal Frazier who, alongside six other Navajo women, competes in a beauty pageant for the title of Miss Navajo Nation 2005–2006.
Roger Ross Williams is an American director, producer and writer and the first African American director to win an Academy Award (Oscar), with his short film Music by Prudence; this film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film in 2009.
Jared Moshe is an American director, screenwriter and producer of independent films. He wrote and directed the films Dead Man's Burden (2012), The Ballad of Lefty Brown (2017) and Aporia (2023). He has also produced the features Destricted (2006), Kurt Cobain: About a Son (2006), Low and Behold (2007), Beautiful Losers (2008), Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel (2011), and Silver Tongues (2011).
Daniel Junge is an American documentary filmmaker. On February 26, 2012, he won the Academy Award for Best Documentary for the film Saving Face, which he co-directed along with Pakistani filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.
Heidi Ewing is an American documentary filmmaker and the co-director of Jesus Camp, The Boys of Baraka, 12th & Delaware, DETROPIA, Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You, One of Us, Love Fraud (series), I Carry You With Me (narrative) and Endangered.
Lindsey Dryden is a British film director, producer and writer.
Matt Wolf is an American filmmaker, documentarian, and producer. His notable films include Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell, Teenage, Bayard & Me,Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project, and Spaceship Earth. In 2010, he was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship. His subjects include youth culture, artists, archives, music, and queer history.
Sydney Freeland is a Native American (Navajo) filmmaker. She wrote and directed the short film Hoverboard (2012) and the film Drunktown's Finest (2014), which garnered numerous acclaims after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival. Her second film, Deidra and Laney Rob a Train, debuted at Sundance and was released on Netflix in 2017.
More Than Frybread is a comedic pseudo-documentary that was released in 2012 which was directed and written by Travis Holt Hamilton. The 96-minute comedy premiered at the Harkins Valley Art Center on May 4, 2012. This film stars Tatanka Means, Greg Fernanadez and Mary Kim Titla. Wanting to celebrate and showcase Native cultural tradition, Hamilton says “More Than Frybread is a comedy to showcase nationalism and inter-tribal competition”
Unrest is a 2017 documentary film produced and directed by Jennifer Brea. The film tells the story of how Jennifer and her new husband faced an illness that struck Jennifer just before they married. Initially dismissed by doctors, she starts filming herself to document her illness and connects with others who are home- or bedbound with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome.
Lana Wilson is an American filmmaker. She directed the feature documentaries After Tiller, The Departure, and Miss Americana, as well as the two-part documentary Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields. The first two films were nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary.
Lance Oppenheim is an American filmmaker, documentarian, & producer. His work blends nonfiction storytelling with heightened, cinematic formalism. Oppenheim has received critical acclaim for his films Some Kind of Heaven (2021) and Spermworld (2024). He is also known for creating the HBO documentary series Ren Faire (2024).
Celine Held is an American and British film director, writer, and actress. Her debut feature film Topside, co-directed with her partner Logan George, premiered at the 77th Venice International Film Festival. Her short film Caroline that she co-wrote, co-directed and starred in, was nominated for the Short Film Palme d'Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. Her additional short film work has premiered at Sundance Film Festival and at South by Southwest.
XTR is an American independent film production company founded in 2019 by Bryn Mooser. The company is best known for producing films Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado (2020), Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (2020), The Fight (2020), 76 Days (2020), and Ascension (2021).
Frybread Face and Me is a 2023 American coming-of-age drama film written and directed by Billy Luther. It stars Keir Tallman, Charley Hogan, Sarah H. Natani, Martin Sensmeier, and Kahara Hodges. Taika Waititi serves as an executive producer.